Australian Charts: Ed Sheeran Divide Spends 5th Week At No 1

Five weeks and counting for Ed Sheeran and his “÷ (Divide)” album in the No.1 position on the ARIA Albums Chart.

With both Ed’s ‘divide’ and ‘Shape’ at the top of both ARIA charts for the past five weeks, this is now the longest dual-run at the top since late-June to mid-August of 2011 when Adele logged seven consecutive weeks at the top of both charts with “Someone Like You” and her second album “21”, and this is the longest run at the top for a solo male artist since Bryan Adams’ “Please Forgive Me” and his parent album “So Far So Good” did so for five weeks from mid-Dec 1993 until mid-Jan of 1994.

Ed Sheeran racks up his fourteenth accumulated week at No.1 and he now moves from equal 45th to now equal 42nd on the list for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: 1965 to 2017’ alongside the 14 weeks racked up by Crowded House (5 #1’s), Bee Gees (also 3 #1’s) and Whitney Houston (2 #1’s). And on the list for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: 2010’s, weeks’ he moves to outright fourth after eclipsing the 13 weeks that Taylor Swift has notched up during this decade.

As I mentioned in the singles section for this week, the DVD and Blu-ray for the animated Disney film ‘Moana’ was released on the 29th of March, and after week’s Top 10 return, this week is blasted back up six places to land at a new peak of No.2 (formerly it peaked at No.3 for three broken weeks in January and February). This is one of four soundtracks within the Top 10, all four are aimed at the younger generation (plus school holidays have just started in some states too), and three of them are animated films too. The only fully-non-animated film (it has a little bit) is “Beauty & the Beast” whose album is back down one to No.5, and right behind it is the ‘Sing’ (HP-2) set, which was also recently issued on DVD and Blu-Ray, and is back up six places to No.6 for a seventh week inside the Top 10, and finally back down two spots to No.8 is the soundtrack for “Trolls”.

Adele’s “25” set is back up one spot to No.4, and returning to the Top 10 is Ed Sheeran’s “x (Multiply)” set, back up two to No.9 and its 94th week within the Top 10, and the only surviving album from last week’s Top 10 debuts is Lee Kernaghan with “The 25th Anniversary Album”, which drops eight places to No.10 this week. For this week there are two albums debuting within the ten, the highest of which is “Emperor of Sand” for Mastodon, the heavy metal act’s seventh studio album and now second Top 10 here, plus their highest charted too. Previously they hit No.7 with their sixth set “Once More ‘Round the Sun” (late June 2014) and overall this is their sixth Top 100 entry (five studio, 1 live). The other Top 10 entry is the eighth studio album and first in seven years for Jamiroquai entitled “Automaton”, which comes in at No.7 to become the band’s fifth Top 10 album, with the band’s fourth and fifth sets having both debuted at No.1, “Synkronized” (1wk on 21st June, 1999) and “A Funk Odyssey” (6 broken weeks from 10th Sept, 2001, the five further weeks were in Jan and Feb of 2002 when they toured here).

UP:
* Rag’N’Bone Man’s Graham Norton performance last week (3rd April screened here) also helps his album “Human” to rise back up seven places to No.11.
* Cyndi Lauper is touring the country at the moment with Blondie in a dual tour, and her 2016 album of country covers entitled “Detour” (HP-26, May 2016) returns to the Top 100 at a new peak of No.15 this week.
* A bunch of best of compilations rise and return this week from “The Very Best of” for Fleetwood Mac (74 to 27), Roy Orbison’s “Ultimate Collection” (52 to 28), “Very Best of” by INXS (43 to 29), “The Essential” for Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen returns at No.32 and No.51 respectively, “The Best of” for Nickelback is back in at No.64, “All Time GH” by Neil Diamond returns at No.74, celebrating the 50th anniversary of their first albums release helps The Doors “Very Best of” back in at No.79, “Greatest Hits” for The Notorious B.I.G. and Tracy Chapman are back in at No.86 and No.89, and “The Essential” by Michael Jackson is back at No.93.
* Jessica Mauboy is touring with Isaiah around the country at the moment, and her “Secret Daughter” TV soundtrack is back up seven to No.33.
* Leaping back up forty-five spots to No.37 is The Hilltop Hoods album “Drinking… Walking… Restrung”, whilst a new teaser for the upcoming second ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ film and soundtrack sees the first volume charge back up forty-four spots this week to No.42.
* Taylor Swift slumped last week with her “1989” set, which this week is back up thirty places to No.40.
* Kaleo grabbed their first singles chart entry this week with “Way Down We Go” at No.70, which helps their album “A/B” (which originally peaked at No.66) to rise up thirty-two spots to a new peak of No.43 and its first week within the Top 50 too.
* Flume just released a new remix of his tracks from “Skin”. and his album is back up twenty-seven spots to No.50 this week.
* Fleetwood Mac just issued the 30th Anniversary edition of their 1987 album “Tango in the Night” (HP-5, charted 4th May, 1987, peaked Nov 1987) and it returns to the chart at No.55, plus their “Rumours (40th Ann.Ed.)” is back in at No.77.
* Back up nine places to No.56 is Kasey Chambers’ “Dragonfly” set.
* Last week twenty one pilots blasted back up with their “Blurryface” album (TW-26), and now their previous set “Vessel” jumps back up this week, rising thirty places to No.61.
* “The Wonder of You” for Elvis Presley is back up seventeen spots to No.62.
* The Dolly, Emmylou and Linda set “My Dear Companion” rises twenty-nine places to No.71.
* After dropping to No.96 last week, the Human Nature set “Jukebox Vol.II” is back up twenty to No.76.
* Further returning albums not mentioned above come from Bruno Mars and “Doo-Wops & Hooligans” (#69) and “Unorthodox Jukebox” (#90), “To Pimp a Butterfly” for Kendrick Lamar (#75), “Wildflower” by The Avalanches (#80), “Brace” for Birds of Tokyo (#81), Arctic Monkeys’ “AM” (#83), Illy and his “Two Degrees” (#87), Vance Joy and “Dream Your Life Away” (#88), Norah Jones’ “Day Breaks” (#94), “Illuminate” for Shawn Mendes (#96), “Safia’s “Internal” (#97), Neil Young’s 1972 set “Harvest” (#99) and after leaving from No.35 last week, the “Score” set by 2Cellos is back in at #100.

DOWN:
* Three of last weeks four Top 10 debuts fall out of the ten this week, with “The Afterlove” (HP-7, WI10-1) for James Blunt down seven to No.14 (he was on Graham Norton this past Friday, so it might rise next week), “More Life” (HP-2, WI10-2) by Drake falls eight to No.17 and the other two from last week were “Mesmer” (HP-3, WI10-1) by Northlane, which falls eighteen to No.21 and dropping twenty places to No.30 are Steel Panther with “Lower the Bar” (HP-10, WI10-1).
* The Waifs falls nine to No.25 with their former No.1 “Ironbark”.
* The only new certification this week, and now ▲Platinum, is for recent tourists the Dixie Chicks, whose “The Essential” is down ten to No.31, whilst their “Classic Albums Collections” tumbles thirty-two spots to No.67.
* Adele’s debut set “19” drops twenty-one spots this week to No.41.
* Dropping nineteen spots due to their new album debuting this week are The Wiggles with “Nursery Rhymes”, down to No.45.
* Even though she is touring at the moment, the Tash Sultana EP “Notion” is down ten to No.46.
* Guns N’ Roses “Greatest Hits” falls fifteen places to No.47.
* After being stable within the Top 30 for the past four weeks, this week “Remembrance” drops eighteen places to No.48.
* The Weeknd tumbles twenty-four places to No.49 with his “Starboy” album.
* The Cold Chisel “Best-of-All for You” set falls back down twenty-three places to No.57.
* Milky Chance spent a single week in the Top 10 with “Blossom” (HP-8), and two weeks within the Top 50, as this week (the album’s third on the charts) the set drops thirty-two spots to No.59.
* Also leaving the Top 50 for the first time (in 18 weeks) is The Rolling Stones set “Blue & Lonesome”, which is down sixteen spots to No.60.
* Down sixteen to No.63 (and out of the Top 50 for the first time too) is the “Suicide Squad” soundtrack, and other soundtracks falling out of the fifty are “Fifty Shades Darker” (41 to 72) and “La La Land” (50 to 85).
* Down twenty-one places to No.66 is “The Very Very Best of” for Crowded House.
* Zara Larsson sees her second album and first chart entry in “So Good” drop a massive forty-four spots to No.82.
* Kingswood score the biggest drop within the Top 100 this week as their “After Hours, Close to Dawn” set plummets fifty-nine places to No.98 this week.
* There are eight albums that leave the Top 100 from last weeks fifty, sleepmakeswaves (#15), Ali Barter (#17), Trey Songz (#24), Take That (#28), Kip Moore (#29), Mindsnare (#33), Depeche Mode (#48) and The McClymonts (#49).

NEW ENTRIES:
* #12 (LP#6) – Bloodlust by Body Count is the band’s third albums chart entry in Australia, their first two albums being the others in “Body Count” (LP#1, HP-12, 1992) and “Born Dead” (LP#2, HP-5, 1994), and this is the band’s first new material in over three years.

* #16 (LP#10) – Starlight by Jon Stevens is the former New Zealand solo artist and Noiseworks front man’s tenth studio album and third to chart on the ARIA Charts, plus by debuting so high it also becomes his highest charted effort too, as he first made it to No.27 with his third album “Are U Satisfied” (Oct 1993) and then his ninth set “Woman” (HP-86, Sept 2015).

* #19 (LP#3) – Alright Already by Polish Club is the first chart entry for the duo of Novak and John-Henry from Sydney, who are touring their album nationally in May and June.

* #34 (LP#49) Och Aye the G’Nu by Jimmy Barnes & The Wiggles sees the teaming of black skivvy wearing member Jimmy Barnes, who tells the story of an unusual creature that lives in the Scottish zoo called The G’Nu, and two other Wiggles sets are on the chart at the moment, “The Best of” (TW-35) and “Nursery Rhymes” (#45).

* #36 (LP#38) Triplicate by Bob Dylan is the third in the series of American classic songs from Bob Dylan, this time around it is over three discs, and he is covering songs like “Stormy Weather”, “That Old Feeling”, “My One and Only”, “As Time Goes by”, “P.S. I Love You”, “Sentimental Journey”, “These Foolish Things” and “Stardust” among the 30 tracks.

* #38 (Comp) One Voice by Aled Jones, Vera Lynn & Dame Joan Sutherland is a follow-up to Aled’s 2016 similar titled album, where he sang duets with his 15-year-old self (he is now 46), and this time around he does duets with Vera Lynn and Dame Joan Sutherland among them.

* #73 (GH#8) Greatest Hits by Blondie is debuting due to the group touring the country at the moment alongside Cyndi Lauper, and this becomes the band’s fifth best of set to chart, their first “The Best of Blondie” hit No.1 for two weeks in February of 1982.